


My Guitar Slide Is Made of Platinum And Vows But It Makes All Of My Songs Sound Off Key

by ohfrecklefreckle



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Bandom - Freeform, Fandom, M/M, Peterick, Real life details, fall out boy - Freeform, mentions of wives/families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 14:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohfrecklefreckle/pseuds/ohfrecklefreckle
Summary: ~A million definitions of tired raced through Patrick's mind. There was lots to be tired of and tired for and he felt largely the same. If his body was weary then his mind was close to needing CPR.~Old school disclaimer: M/M RPF - you have been warned! Some bad language, not explicit. If you don't like RPF then please don't read it. Scores on the angst scale but nothing too heavy. Not really a songfic but there are lyrics so avoid if that's not your thing x





	My Guitar Slide Is Made of Platinum And Vows But It Makes All Of My Songs Sound Off Key

**Author's Note:**

> So, my first foray into FOB bandom fic. Please be kind or at least just eye roll quietly if you think it's trash x 
> 
> Dedicated to my wonderful friend and the one who showed me the light - [OutfieldOutlaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutfieldOutlaw/pseuds/OutfieldOutlaw). Thank you for bringing me back home <3 My steep descent (ascent?!) into bandom is entirely down to OutfieldOutlaw and stumbling across one wonderfully random Youtube recommended video of a live version of Sugar... 
> 
> One of our regular late night chats inspired this fic, the first I've written for a while after a fair old writing hiatus. We discussed Pete's past comments about Patrick's singing turning him on and the notion that he rings Patrick sometimes and asks him to sing for him on the phone. I loved the idea that Patrick's voice is Pete's go-to lullaby <3
> 
> See the end for a few more notes and references and please enjoy!

Throwing a hand around the shower curtain Patrick blindly groped along the counter top whilst swearing under his breath, batting the heavy fabric away as it clung to his wet skin. His hand found nothing and, to his frustration, the ringing and vibrating stopped suddenly giving him even less chance of finding his phone as it cleverly disguised itself on the flat, featureless marble. For a second he toyed with getting out to find it but the amount of shampoo still in his hair and about to drip down into his eyes seemed a good enough reason not to.

Back under the water he let all the shampoo rinse down before begrudgingly shutting off the water and spending a moment standing with his hands over his eyes. The silence was only interrupted by the dripping of water as it trickled down his arms and fell from the point of his elbows. Another show, another town, another weekend of being away from home and he was getting tired. The final US leg of the tour seemed to be taking forever to finish and the one thing he could remain focused on was the glorious whole week off he had coming before flying out to Europe to continue the madness. There was a lot of music he had been paid to write and it wasn't going to appear out of thin air. Six whole days of sitting in his studio knee deep in guitar riffs and string loops sounded like bliss.

The thick bath towel hung over the heated rail was nearly big enough to wrap around his waist twice and for a second he thought how useful a towel that big would have been ten years and sixty pounds ago. With the smaller one he rubbed roughly at his hair until he felt slightly light headed which seemed as good a time as any to stop. As he stepped out onto the tiles Patrick caught a glimpse of himself in the steamed up mirror and staring back he saw the face of a man who needed his bed. It was long gone 2am but as usual the allure of a hot shower and prospect of having freshly scrubbed skin to slide against the soft cotton sheets had been too much to resist. He grabbed his phone and fumbled it back to life as he headed out of the humidity into the refreshing coolness of his dark room.

One missed call. Pete. Without hesitation he swiped the notification to the right, calling straight back. He always did, no matter when or where, but never quite knew why, even after all these years. In reality he had some idea but chose not to pick his behaviour to pieces when it came to Pete. There was no point as he couldn't understand the him that he became when Pete was involved. There was an extremely well paid therapist that was helping him with that endless conundrum and if the professionals couldn't help him crack it it hardly seemed worth even more effort to try and bottom that one out on his own.

The call barely had the chance to ring before it connected.

“Hey man, where were you?”

“In my room, in the shower.”

“Oh, okay, cool. I figured you might have company.”

A suggestive and inquisitive pause brought a smile to Patrick's lips which he tried his best to hide in the sound of his voice.

“Yeah, so we got off the bus what, forty minutes ago? I came straight back to my room and somehow I've still managed to stumble into someone dick first. Busted! You got me.”

“Don't be an asshole. Besides, you've had _company_ after a show before.”

From Pete a lewd, leading comment like that was never a barb, it was both standard practice and a matter of fact but Patrick still couldn't ignore how loaded the statement was.

“That was a long time ago and coming from you, huh? If misery loves company then you were really fucking miserable for a long time Pete.”

“Perks of the job, man, perks of the job.”

The short burst of borderline staccato laughter that followed Pete's words started and ended abruptly. It confirmed what Patrick had gleaned almost the second they started talking. Pete was still wired as hell and needed to come down from the high of the show.

“So, what do you need?”

“I...yeah, y'know, Like, I can't...”

The way Pete stumbled over the words made his heart ache. It was late and anything after 2am felt really late now they were all getting that bit older. If Pete hadn't fallen asleep on the bus back then he usually needed a little help to do so. There were lots of ways he could suggest that Pete try but Patrick was well aware of what was being asked of him without the words ever having been formed.

“I got it. Pete, you know you don't have to say-”

“Sing to me, Betty.”

Patrick couldn't stifle his laugh. It wasn't a name he heard very often but when he did it brought back memories that time hadn't managed to fade at all. The tone was at best irreverent but he couldn't take offence that he had been interrupted when he was trying to show some genuine understanding. There's no way their friendship could have survived as long as it had if he took Pete too seriously.

“Soooo, any requests?”

“You choose. They all sound pretty awesome down a phone line.”

“It's nearly 3am but I can come up and serenade you from outside your door with a rose in my teeth if that would be better.”

The minute the words left his lips Patrick winced. He had said it without thinking and a knowing silence filled the empty line. Pete was no more than thirty feet above his head, no doubt collapsed on the bed in little more than a t-shirt and trunks or maybe even less. Pete would interpret the invite as nothing to do with singing and he knew that. One other thing Patrick knew was that if he did go up there neither of them would be sleeping before dawn. He would slide between the sheets as he always did, the arm that curled around his neck as fingers laced into his hair giving its usual assent to what was to follow. In between stolen kisses he would half sing, half whisper the words against Pete's lips until he couldn't breathe, his mouth smothered and plundered as the tide turned. He'd find himself rolled onto his back out of nowhere, hands frantically shoving their way inside his shorts and clumsily dragging his t-shirt up as the fumbling grew frenzied. Hungry mouths, insistent hands and willing hips would blur into something beautiful.

“So, come on up but, y'know, only if you really _want_ to...”

Turmoil was an understatement when it came to how an offer like that made Patrick feel. He wanted to go despite knowing he shouldn't, the prickle of anticipation already spreading across his bare skin. Pete was the one thing he'd never be able to give up but sometimes he had to try for his own sanity. He figured out a while back that he needed to demonstrate more self control and at least try not to take the easy route. He wanted nothing more than to go up there but he had to try. With a slow shake of his head he tried to rationalise how he was turning down Pete Wentz. _The_ Pete Wentz. The Pete Wentz that was waiting for him, wanted him, had _begged_ for him in the past. His Pete Wentz.

“I can't, man, I just... I can't.”

The disappointment was wordless and yet palpable from both ends of the call. Patrick heard a gruffle of a cleared throat and waited for what was going to come out of Pete's mouth next.

“So sing already, asshole.”

“Fuck you.”

Patrick pulled his phone away from his ear, smiling as he did so, and switched it to speaker, gently setting it down on the nightstand and crossing the room to grab his guitar. He was soon sat cross legged on the bed, ignoring the fact that his towel was slowly imparting it's moisture into the sheets, and alternating between turning the tuning pegs and picking at the odd string or two.

“You really needed to tune that thing.”

“Hey Pete, did you miss that I said fuck you?”

As he strummed to get it into tune Patrick knew that Pete was far from getting truly impatient, at least not for the music. The audible shuffling, lip popping and off key humming from the other end of the line was masked only by the low hiss of static. If Patrick had to put money on it Pete's phone would be rested square and centre in the middle of a bare chest, rising and falling with every breath.

Once he was happy Patrick plucked the opening chords out and started singing; his version one that had never made it to any acoustic gig or stage, not even to a rehearsal room. The message and meaning subtly different but forever changed. The revised versions were raw, rare, private and intended for two pairs of ears only.

_“Trade baby blues for wide eyed browns_  
_I sleep with your old shirts_  
_And walk through this house in your shoes_  
_You know, it's strange_  
_It's a strange way of saying_  
_That I know I'm supposed to love you_  
_I'm supposed to love you...”_

He was sure that he heard a sigh part way through but kept going, knowing that it could prove to have been a risky choice. Lyrically it was one of Pete's more revealing and bittersweet moments and so often got a mixed response even from him. It was one of Patrick's favourites to strip back though and sounded so good with nothing other than gentle chord transitions and movement across the frets that were as close to caresses as he could manage while still getting the notes to ring out.

_"Already given up on myself twice_  
_Third time is the charm, time's the charm_  
_Threw caution to the wind_  
_But I've got a lousy arm_  
_And I've traced your shadow on the wall...”_

“Patrick.”

_“Now I kiss it whenever I'm down  
Whenever I'm down...”_

“Patrick!”

“What? What's wrong?”

The abrupt sharp squeal of the last aborted half-note from the way he'd suddenly abandoned the guitar strings made Patrick squint.

“Not that one. Like, I like it but not tonight, not unless you're gonna come up here.”

With a resigned sigh Patrick took a moment to consider whether or not he could change his mind. Could it be right to go out into the corridor and, before he knew it, find himself at Pete's door, in Pete's bed and, more likely than not, in Pete? A few more turns of the keys and he decided not to move another muscle that he didn't have to. If he didn't risk it then he couldn't crack and grab the spare key card that stared at him accusingly from the dresser across the room.

“So what do you want if this is turning into your own personal TRL?”

“You know. _That_ song. I'll sleep if you play it. Like, I'm just real tired man.”

A million definitions of tired raced through Patrick's mind. There was lots to be tired of and tired for and he felt largely the same. If his body was weary then his mind was close to needing CPR. Right at that moment, outside of the usual mental apparitions like tour stresses and performance anxiety, he was tired of pretending that he didn't want to be in Pete's bed but far more tired of the urge to carry on letting his wife think he no longer lived the double life that it now felt like he always had. She knew most of the story and believed Patrick when he said there was nothing going on, or at least was sensible enough to turn a blind eye, but his conscience pricked him more often than he was comfortable with. Outside of him and Pete there were no real winners from his infidelity and he knew that.

That low level sense of guilt was generally the only thing that stopped him in his tracks unless something happened that he felt powerless to resist. A hand rested on his thigh an inch too high or for a second too long, a warm breath against the back of his neck when Pete pressed himself close and took them both to a place that fate had decided they had no choice but to go, the hand that found and breached the hem of his t-shirt and undid the button of his jeans when they sat together on a hotel room bed. All of them. Any of them. It was easy to hate himself in the daylight for what they shared in the dark but somehow it didn't stop him or them from transgressing when the time was right.

“Okay but just so you know I will hang up if you start singing along or snoring. Don't ruin it.”

“I get it Patrick, just sing to me.”

The detectable air of rising desperation in Pete's voice was enough to set Patrick's plectrum to work. He just had to try to help when he knew that Pete was struggling, like he was hard wired to do all he could to fix the hurt. One word, one pleading phone call or text and he had to be there. It wasn't his choice, in fact he wondered when it last was a choice, but he just had to go along with it. Every time they'd walked away from one another and rebuilt the brick wall between them, especially the one from the waist down, it got demolished whenever Pete was ready to reel him in again.

Some days Patrick hated himself for how weak willed he was when it came to Pete but from when he first met the precocious emo edgy wannabe with a shitty attitude he'd been smitten. His head had been spinning so long and so hard it felt like he might explode if he tried to figure out where his usual morals and integrity had run away to. Through guyliner, near misses, controversy, fist fights, hiatus and heartbreak he had been by Pete's side, even when it was too hard to comprehend why he still chose to put himself through it.

_“Little triggers that you pull with your tongue_  
_Little triggers, I don't want to be hung up, strung up_  
_When you don't call up._

_Little sniggers on your lips_  
_Little triggers in your grip_  
_Little triggers, my hand on your hip...”_

Closing his eyes, Patrick stared through the darkness inside his eyelids to as far back as the first time he'd played the song to Pete. They were alone in their beat up van having driven to a bar to try and convince the owner that he needed yet another unsigned rock band to play for him on a Friday night in exchange for free beer or pizza. The first time around Pete had been pretty unimpressed but as usual he was too busy goofing around to really listen. On the second play that reception had changed drastically against a backdrop of hands touching, fingers entwining and the stars barely lighting up an ink black sky above them. Eventually the song became more a part of their shared understanding than a simple combination of melancholy melody and lyrics.

In Patrick's opinion it was a great song but from an era that most of his friends, peers and initially even his bandmates had no idea about. As a piece of musical art it drew Patrick in with a sense of purity and simplicity. No fancy or long words, clever in lyrical construction for its time but even he had to admit that it was nothing compared to some of Pete's efforts. It was little more than an open love letter to someone who didn't take love seriously enough. If Pete's brand of soul-connected, cathartic pop punk poetry spelled out the fabric of his being to anyone who would listen then Patrick liked to think of Elvis Costello as the cool guy who could say it all with a tip of his hat or the subtle, throaty urging that he was sure made any long dead rat-pack crooner turn in their grave.

“ _Thinkin' all about those censored sequences_ __  
_Worryin' about the consequences_ __  
_Waiting until I come to my senses_ _  
__Better put it all in present tenses...”_

There wasn't much by way of complicated finger work in the playing of the song to account for his mental distraction. It had always been the lyrics that made Patrick stumble in his head even if any temporary wobble didn't usually make it to his voice. Censored sequences had become the story of his and Pete's life together and that alone broke him in a thousand ways. Now it wasn't just a game, it wasn't just Pete sneaking into his bunk at night in the back of a tour bus and a whole lot of fooling around before they finally fell asleep together with Joe and Andy only feet away. Wives, women, kids, families – they didn't deserve to fall victim to whatever he and Pete had and whatever they'd become.

The one thing that stopped him coming to his senses was Pete and he knew that would always be the case. That unexplained and otherwise illogical lust, that sick twisting in the pit of his guts was always and only for Pete. It had never been there for another man and if he was entirely honest with himself it had never been there for a woman either. There was no sense in fighting it though, he had learned the hard way that it was never going to go away. Maybe the therapist was a waste of money after all.

He was sure that everybody knew with the way he looked at Pete, the way they were always a little too close to just be friends but had never really let slip that they were or ever had been lovers. His wife gave him the perverse convenience of not having to give up what he loved - the normality and anonymity of straight life, kids and a solid marriage that his parents had wanted for him above all else - but that somehow gave what they had an even more illicit edge that neither had been able to turn their back on. Like powdered faced pantomime dames they went through the motions for everybody else's entertainment until the doors were closed and then their costumes would slide off onto the floor, collecting in a pile of addictive freedom at their feet.

His thoughts swirling, Patrick just about made it to the end of the song and found himself strumming the outro more quietly than he would usually. There was nothing coming down the line, no words or sounds, no snoring or requests for an encore. Reaching over he let his finger hover over the red phone icon for a second, barely stopping himself from asking if Pete was still there. He hadn't wanted to talk at all until he felt the weight of the lyrics like a sack of rocks on his back. Sometimes he wanted to ask Pete what he really wanted from him but there was no point. When he had asked in the past the answer would always come back the same: “Us. I just want us.” That didn't help at all but every now and again it was nice to hear. Feeling so imperfect but being so desired by a self-confessed narcissist like Pete had been hard to adjust to.

Tapping the red icon saw the room fall totally silent, the call ended and the sound of the guitar no longer echoed back from the tall glass doors that led out onto a pointless balcony. He carefully propped the guitar up against the nightstand and grabbed his t-shirt and shorts from the other side of the bed, glad if nothing else that he was dry enough to put them straight on and would soon be between the cool sheets. Much as he wanted to throw the towel onto the carpet good manners wouldn't let him so there was one last trip to the bathroom and one final unenthusiastic rub of his barely damp hair before the towel found its way to the back of the door and Patrick headed towards his bed.

In the dim light he saw the glow of his phone from where he left it. It faded again before he got to it but with a press of his thumb the screen came back to life and he whispered the words to himself before dropping his phone onto his pillow and putting his head in his hands.

_Need you. Come up?_

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo... that's number one out of the way. As I said at the start, kindness would be nice but just don't hate on me too hard and I'll be okay! 
> 
> Refs:
> 
> Pete calling Patrick Betty comes from the line "Break a sweat, Betty." (About 7:50 into the video) comes from [this Elvis Duran interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GffPpDrdgk8&t=702s) and Patrick's reaction makes me think there's more to the name Betty than we know. That's all I got - if you know more then please feel free to share :)
> 
> [This](https://twitter.com/patrickstump/status/405063850208161792?lang=en-gb) is a link to a tweet from Patrick recommending EC's album from which I chose the song 'Little Triggers'
> 
> If you think I'm being mean about Pete being a narcissist - [Here it is](https://www.loudersound.com/features/pete-wentz-fall-out-boy-interview-reading-leeds-festival) in his own words.
> 
> Comments, kudos and 'get a grip woman' eyerolls all appreciated. As Patrick would say in his own inimitable fashion, thanks! :)


End file.
